Vengeance of the Gods Pt. 01

Soon, Ok'afo, Nwan'eli, and several other kindred men and women, joined them. There were over forty people gathered there, including curious passersby.

Eventually, Ogbuefi Okechukwu called for silence so that the young man could tell his story.

He coughed nervously and started to speak. "There're two sides to this story-my own side and the one these children have to tell. I think it's better for them to tell their own side first." He paused and looked at the boy. "What brought you to the place I saw you two this afternoon?"

The boy swallowed nervously and looked around at the gathered people, then at the ground, then at the young man. At length he started to speak.

"They... they were slave-hunters..." His voice trailed away as cries of 'who?' and 'what?' echoed around the gathering at the deeply hated word.

"Yes, go on", Ogbuefi Okechukwu urged the boy, as he seemed to lose his tongue at the barrage of questions that greeted his first nervous statement.

He started to speak again, and the whole gathering was dead silent as he told of how he and his cousin were caught by four strangers when they went to fetch firewood in the bush. The men had tied palm-fronds between their lips, tied their hands with twine rope, and dragged them through the bush until they got to a small hut, right in the middle of thick bushes. They had rested there for a while before they were joined by a fifth man with a gun.

Shortly after his arrival, they had all left together, traveling throughout the night. Sometimes they walked on the road, but mostly through bush paths, until early that morning when they came to the clearing where he saw them. Since they were caught, they only ate that afternoon, he told them.

By the time he finished, there were tears in many eyes, especially those of the women. They gathered around them, clucking in sympathy and fusing over them.

At the prompting of Daa Mgb'oye, one of the oldest women in the kindred, the children were led away to bath and be fed. Then it was time for the young man's story.

By the time he finished telling it, shouts of 'Eze-nwata!', 'Omek'agu!' and 'Nna-nnia!' rent the air, eulogizing him, calling him 'the child king', 'leopard-like one' and 'his father's father'.

Before he could answer any of the myriad of posed questions, young men in the gathering carried him shoulder-high and started parading around the kindred. They did this to the accompaniment of music played with the ekwe, wooden gong, and ogene, metal gong, which had materialized as if by magic. There was a lot of hand clapping, too, as they sang his praises to the high heavens, praying to be blessed with more of such great men of valor who made nations strong and secure.

When they brought him back to Ok'afo's compound, Ogbuefi Okechukwu, the oldest man in the gathering, asked for a kola nut and some palm wine. Then he asked the young man to kneel down before him. First, he gave thanks for the life and health that made it possible for them to see this great day. He gave thanks for the strength and courage the young man needed to do what he had done in paying those evil slave-hunters the full wages of their sins.

Then he blessed the young man and declared that in all his considerable time on earth, he had never seen such valor in one so young. He also predicted that greater feats would come from the outstanding young man. He finally commended him for risking his own life and freedom to rescue children he did not know, proving correct the ancient axiom, Nwanne di na mba-brothers can be found in foreign lands.

Then he broke the kola nut and threw out a cotyledon of it on the floor for their ancestors. He also poured out some of the wine, calling on the ancestors to come and take their share. Then the rest of the kola nut and others they brought were shared among all present. The palm wine was also shared among the gathered people. Then the impromptu celebration started in earnest. Food and drinks materialized from all corners of the kindred, brought by men and women who were very pleased with the young man's feat.

By the time he took his own bath and came out, the mood was high and the atmosphere charged with the joy of the moment. There were little groups of men and women singing songs of reminiscence of great achievements of the past; and they added his name among those great men of courage who made nations strong and secure.

He could not refuse their promptings to join them, so he went and did a few dance steps while the music became more frenzied and the singing got louder.

When he eventually sat down to eat, he felt eyes on him and looked up to see the girl staring intently at him. Their eyes met and she looked away shyly. When their eyes met again, he smiled and she smiled back shyly.

Her prettiness struck him-with the grime washed away, the transformation was great. He noted that she was quite fair in complexion. She was thin, though, and her face looked pinched. He glimpsed a haunted look in the depths of her beautiful eyes, and wondered about that in one so young.

Perhaps, a result of the trauma they went through, he thought grimly.

The boy joined her and he noted the resemblance between them for the first time. He beckoned on them and they came to him.

"Sit down and eat with me," he invited with a smile.

"Thank you, but our belly is full," the boy answered, rubbing his stomach.

"So full that you can't eat meat?" he teased.

"No, thank you," he answered with a smile, eyeing the meat all the same.

"What about you?" He turned to the girl.

"I would have liked to eat, but my belly is bursting. Those women wanted to kill us with food in there. They kept asking us to eat more and more, and now I can hardly walk." She spoke so artlessly... so innocently, that he laughed heartily, charmed by the lack of self-consciousness.

How like a child, he thought dryly and smiled at her. She smiled back, and once again, her thin face lit up as the sun does a sullen sky. He gazed at her happy face, thinking, this one will be a real beauty one day.

"Where're you from?" he asked, idly stirring his soup with his forefinger.

"We're from Nnewi," the boy answered.

He had already guessed that much from their dialect.

"Where, in Nnewi, are you from?" His tone was teasing, challenging.

"Otolo". The boy had picked up his tone and was playing along.

"Where's Otolo?" He was unrelenting.

"Near the Nkwo market. Do you know the Nkwo market?" The boy took over the challenge.

"Yes, I do; it's the biggest market in Nnewi. So you know you're from Otolo, Nnewi, near the Nkwo market. Does that mean you'll be able to find your way home if you're asked to do so?" The challenge was back with him.

"Not from here, but from the Nkwo market, I will." His face was screwed up in thought as he answered, and the young man laughed again. This time, they joined him in the laughter.

"Are we going home tomorrow?" the girl asked, her tone eager.

"Yes," he assured her. "Are you in a hurry to go?" he teased with a smile.

"Yes, I am. I want to see my mother. I know she must be crying a lot by now." Her expression grew serious and her eyes clouded over. Then it lit up again. "But I want to come back to see Nneka". She pointed at a young girl about her age who was engaged in animated conversation with another girl. "She plays a wonderful oga," she said excitedly, referring to a favored game of girls that involved songs, clapping and dexterous leg movements.

"Will you come home with us tomorrow?" the boy asked expectantly.

"No, I can't," he said regretfully. "I have to go to Onitsha early tomorrow morning. I work there." He watched their faces fall, and an expression akin to fear fleet across their eyes.

"I want you to come with us," the girl pleaded. "I want you to tell my mother how you killed... how you beat those men to rescue us."

"Please, don't be upset, but I can't come with you. I'll like to go with you, but I can't. Don't worry, I'll see you soon."

"When? Where?" the boy asked, all eager excitement.

"I don't know when, but soon, I promise." He tried to reassure them with a smile, but their disappointment, and a hint of sadness, showed clearly.

Just then, his sister called out to them to come and sleep, and they turned reluctantly to go.

"Wait," he called out to them and they turned back to him. "You haven't told me your names."

"My name is Nduk'aku and she's Sool'uka," the boy answered.

"Eem... eem... okay, goodnight," he stammered painfully, and they called back the greeting as they went with his sister. He sat staring after them for a while. Then he turned back to the food that had become much less appealing than before.

The deadly encounter with the slave-hunters had destroyed the euphoric mood he was in as he left home late that morning; and he lay awake long into the night, his mind playing back the extraordinary event.

He was on his way to see his brother, a blacksmith, and catechist of the new church at Obosi, en route to Onitsha, where he lived and worked. He was coming from his home clan, Umuelo, where he had gone to take part in the Ilochi-nwanyi celebrations, an annual festival when women paid tribute to their chi or personal guardian angel, for all they believed he had done for them in the course of the season, and asked for a bountiful harvest.

He had felt compelled to respond to his mother's invitation and be part of the festivities, since he had not gone home for several moons.

The festival was very memorable because all his married sisters had come with their husbands and children; and many relatives and friends he had not seen for several moons were there too. It was the best Ilochi he had enjoyed for many seasons, and the visits and merriment had gone on late into the night. Most of the invited guests had left the day after the feast, but he had stayed back to help his mother in her farm and help his father prepare his barn for the forthcoming harvest.

He had left today, after fulfilling some obligations of his age-grade society, and visiting with bereaved relatives and newly delivered women-people forbidden by custom to be part of the Ilochi-nwanyi festival.

He sighed deeply as his mind switched from more pleasant preoccupation to the gruesome events of that evening.

Grimly, he fought the inevitable feelings of remorse slaying his fellow humans invoked. The trauma the children's family must have gone through, the agony of worry and fear, made him feel he had done the right thing. Moreover, the thought of those slave-dealing lowlifes marching the children through the bush all night without food or water made him want to do the killings all over again!

How they must have suffered! By the gods, how frightened they must have been! How anyone could conceive and treat children that way was beyond what he could comprehend, because he loved children. He was no fully mature adult himself, but he had special affection for those younger than he was.

Despite the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he strove to assure himself that there was no point in feeling sorry for those slave-dealing crooks. Had he been less ruthless, not only would he have failed to rescue the children, they would surely have killed him or captured him as a slave. Nonetheless, he could scarce believe what he had done.

Despite the haze in his mind, however, he knew exactly why he had done it. He knew where all that fearless courage had come from. Nduka... Nduka... his beloved cousin... His favorite human being in the whole wide world.

They had done so many things together. Nduka had taught him how to fish; how to swim; how to climb and how to play okoso, a favored game of boys. He had taught him how to wrestle, too. No matter how difficult a task was, as long as Nduka was part of it, he always found the strength, drive, and inspiration to accomplish it. In spite of how much he loved his grandfather and their hunting expeditions, Nduka's presence was often the tonic that made him go on some of them. He was a cousin dearer to him than a brother was. Then those animals had taken him away!

He was only fifteen seasons of age at the time and Nduka was seventeen. However, he felt sure that if he had been present, they would not have taken Nduka. Together, they would have defeated those men, whatever their number or strength. And that was what pained him so-his absence when Nduka needed him the most.

They had grown up together at his eldest brother's compound at Obosi, but that planting season, he had gone home to help his parents. Then had come the devastating news that Nduka had been taken by slave-hunters, early one morning, when he had gone to fetch water with a few other children. The other children had managed to escape, which made him feel worse, as though he had betrayed his cousin by failing to be there for him, illogical as that was.

For several moons, he had slept poorly because of the nightmares he had. Every strange young male voice reminded him of Nduka, and sometimes he ran after strangers he saw from behind, thinking they might be Nduka. He had nurtured, somewhere at the back of his mind, the faint, elusive hope that he would see his beloved cousin again. Perhaps, it was his own way of dealing with the terrible pain of his great loss.

And that was what today was about, really. Granted, those children, at about thirteen and eleven seasons of age, were clearly younger than Nduka was when they took him away. But when he saw them in that clearing from that tree, he had felt the same half-crazed pain that had overwhelmed him when he learnt of what happened to Nduka.

Therefore, what happened this evening was not only about rescuing those children. It was also vengeance for what slave-hunters did to Nduka. And he would inflict that vengeance again and again if he had the opportunity to do so! After all, that was why he had gone to work for the Royal Niger Company.

He was Chidebem, George, Orag'amadike Akadike. It was 1895, and he was nineteen seasons old.

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